Talk:How to Create a What-If? Death Battle/@comment-25656629-20190819215052
As someone who wrote several battles in the past, I'm glad to see that there's an official page dedicated to helpful tips. However, there are some others I'd like to mention for those of you who have already started writing. For new writers, I'd say focus on the first two. These all come from personal experience. Tip 1: I can't stress this enough - proofread your fights. Proofreading is something I never did, and at this point, you can tell. Always make sure you spell words correctly, formatted sentences and dialogue right, and placed commas in the proper place. There are tools across the web that will help you, asking a user to proofread for you helps too. We all make mistakes in our writing, no matter the skill level. Proofreading allows for those mistakes to be a secret. Tip 2: Pacing yourself is crucial. Do you want to know how many great things I've written in a single day? None, nothing of substantial-quality gets written during one day. Creativity and writing proficiency requires balance. Working on bits and pieces at a time improves the fight considerably. I highly recommend using documents to save your progress and copy/pasting the end product once it's finished. Tip 3: It's important not to make your work too short, as this page has already clarified. However, making something way too long is arguably even worse. Some characters need more concise duels than others, whether it be due to a lack of moves or if they don't have a personality to utilize. Don't try to prolong the fight just to hit a certain word count. Focus on keeping it fluid for the readers. Tip 4: I know this is going to sound harsh, but I'm going to say it loud and clear. Fights with FNAF animatronics are infamously limited. Unless you're using the non-canon FNAF World, there's nothing to work with in terms of abilities. Don't do them. Tip 5: As you might be aware, this wiki is no stranger to long fights. I have done quite a few, with varying quality. However, it's vital to keep in mind that we, as humans, want a story to keep us going. Short or medium-sized fights don't have that issue. However, when you're bordering on a lengthy short story in word count, or even past that point, you'll want to include a story in the fight to compel the audience to continue. '''Is one of the characters fighting for someone or something? Are the combatants taking a liking to each other mid-fight? Or it could even be as simple as both characters need to kill the other to win something. Regardless of what you pick, you'll want something more compelling than characters punching each other for a long time. Trust me; this will help if you plan on writing original stories after Death Battle writing. Tip 6: Emotional fights are a tricky tightrope; there aren't that many fights out there that choose to go down this route. My advice is to '''plan any scenes designed to invoke emotion in the reader before writing the pre-fight. Throwing in an emotional scene for the sake of it can come across as forced, and create the reaction opposite of what you want. Also, make sure it fits the characters. There are more that I might add overtime, but these are my best recommendations for those of you who want to get better at writing. I don't consider myself to be an expert writer or anything, but I'd at least want my experience writing fights to help others out there. Whether you're doing this just for fun or are using it to improve your writing skills for the future, I believe everyone can write great things. Have fun writing Death Battles, and do what's best for you.